13TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

 

 

 

Here we are at the end of June after 13 weeks of COVID 19 lockdown. if times were normal the schools would be closing for the summer holidays as it is the schools have been closed for the past few months with everyone wondering what things will be like when the schools reopen. This weekend we remember the family of Noah Donohue as we hear the sad news that a body has been recovered we pray that God may give his family  and friends strength at this sad time.

In our Gospel story for this Sunday we are reminded that  The priority of faith demanded radical consequences for early Christians. At that time extended closely-knit families formed the basis of society, a choice for a follower of Christ could mean a rejection of the family’s faith and values. Jesus reminded his followers that the Christian life involved many risks and one could not compromise or hide these risks away a believer could not placate his or her family if the cost threatened faith. The people of the day thought that No, faith could involve such an extreme choice.

Either the relationship with family took priority or the relationship with Jesus took the number one slot it seemed that both could not go together.  Even though they had only a very vague idea then of what he meant, when the time came, they remembered Jesus  words and gladly suffered imprisonment, hardships, and finally martyrdom for Christ.  This shows how the resurrection of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit on them, changed them from worldly weaklings into fearless heroes. They had become convinced that Christ was the Son of God their saviour who had come on earth to bring all men to heaven. Through time they came to realize how unimportant, the few years of the earthly life that we have were compared to the eternal life of bliss to follow.  Today, too, there are still those who are suffering a lingering martyrdom, worse than quick death on the scaffold, because they obey God rather than man. We can help them to persevere, by our prayers. We ourselves, who are free from any overt persecution, must show our gratitude to God for being allowed to practice our religion openly and without fear. As well as carrying out our own personal duties, we must remember the spiritual needs of our fellowmen. They, too, need to get to heaven and anything less will be eternal disaster for them.

We may not be able to preach, or teach them the truth of the Christian faith in the way our priests deacons and religious do but we can show them the way when we are seen to  live according to our Catholic faith.Over the next few weeks and months we will come out of the lockdown as we try to move into a more normal way of life. Many things will be changed and our ways of going around and doing things will be different but for all of this we  thank God that all of us  have come through it safely. As we thank God for bringing us safely to where we are we also remember all those who have died during the pandemic that their families will be consoled by their faith and the love of those around them. May we have the courage to be people of faith  as we go into the new future which the Covid19 pandemic has brought us.

12th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME

 

This weekend our gospel story tells us not to be afraid but for many they are scared and afraid as we come out of lockdown after the last 12 weeks. It is certainly true that life will be changed not ended for all of us as we come out from the lockdown in the coming weeks.  The Gospel message is quite simple Jesus tells us not to be afraid  He does not disguise the truth that his disciples and all of us will be confronted by those who threaten, bully and intimidate others into submissive agreement.  In the first reading Jeremiah refuses to be intimidated by terror from every side. That doesn’t mean that the terror doesn’t get to him it means that he has no intention of allowing the terror to write his script and dictate who he is. Jeremiah has been abandoned by all his friends who now try to discredit him. He is thrown into prison for his preaching, and the army council threatens him with death if he doesn’t change his tune.

But Jeremiah refuses to be bullied into agreement because he believes that “the Lord is at his side, a mighty hero”. What keeps Jeremiah sane amidst all this persecution is the profound belief that God cares for him. And, less spiritually, the frank hope that God will clobber all his enemies in good time! Not only does Jesus want his disciples to refuse to submit to the merchants of death, he tells them not to be afraid of them: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” What our Lord said to His Apostles applies to all Christians including you and me in the practice of our faith. By the very fact of living our faith day and daily openly and fully we are apostles especially during these weeks of the pandemic when we cannot be together as the Church. So today we think of all of those who have given us an example by living their lives in faith in difficult circumstances. These may be parents family members or people we have known we all have people who have shown us the way of faith.

So as faith filled people Jesus teaches us that our only source of freedom and strength is the goodness of our heavenly Father a goodness that is mediated through Jesus himself as well as through good people and beautiful flowers. Furthermore, the discovery of this goodness carries with it the solemn obligation to pass on one’s blessings through concern for others. We must look for the goodness in life and learn to count our blessings as we pass them on to other people. As we emerge from our lockdown there are many things that are changed or will be changing but we stop and thank God for all that we have and all the blessings that have come to us over the last 3 months of lockdown. We also remember all the families out there who have lost family members during the lockdown that God may console them at this time. May be people of courage in the days and months ahead as we remember the words of Jesus when he told us do be not be afraid.

CORPUS CHRISTI

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi in some places this celebration took place last Thursday. It seems so strange that we have been unable to receive the greatest gift from God the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist during the corona virus instead we have been making a spiritual communion but that is not the same. let us remember the importance of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ! The Body and Blood of Christ is an eternal testament to the unconditional love of God for us. Throughout history, this love has been shown to the people of God by God, over and over again, as partially described in the first reading from Deuteronomy. The second reading from 1 Corinthians reminds us that receiving the Body and Blood of Christ is the participation in the life of Christ and that we are one body. In the Gospel passage according to John, Jesus tells the Jewish crowds and us that he is the living bread,

that the living Father sent him, and that we have life within us because of these things. We are spiritually alive and eternally connected. When we see the Eucharistic Bread, we believe that it is Jesus who is there with us:  such is our faith in the Eucharist the bread of life.  We are thus in the presence of the Resurrected One, He who has conquered death and who is now in Heaven, in the Glory of the Father!  Only God can have a Heart so full of Love that he invites us in this way to contemplate him with the eyes of faith, for our eternal happiness, for his own Glory, forever and ever! Not only as individuals does Christ call us to store up eternal heavenly treasures, as opposed to earthly treasures which decay, but we are also called as a people to live virtuous lives. Sadly, we see the moral decay in our own time. By following in our Lord’s footsteps, Christians over the centuries have sacrificed greatly, in a labor of love, for their faith and their Christian way of life. Then as now, it begins with each individual humbly asking God to show the way and to provide the strength needed to follow in His footsteps. Gathered at the Eucharist even through the webcams we bring our prayers to God especially during this COVID19 Pandemic.

We each have our own needs. Friends are sick. Kids need work. The person who has been in our lives for so long has died. There are so many other needs as well and we bring our prayers to church because they remind us of our need and they raise our hope in God. We have this hope  because God has rescued us and continues to rescue us time after time. Our relationship with God has produced fruitfulness, satisfied our longings, and brought us peace. Because of God’s faithfulness, we give thanks, offer sacrifice, and once again present our needs on this feast of Corpus Christi knowing that we will be heard by the Father in heaven who loves us with an everlasting love and does not give up on us or let us down.

 

Trinity Sunday

 

 

From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday we have travelled the 40 days of Lent and from Easter Sunday until Pentecost we have travelled the 50 days of Easter we have now come to part of the Churches Year that is called Ordinary Time. This year for want of other words Ordinary Time is a Lot Less Ordinary as we emerge from the COVID 19 pandemic with changes made to so many things. This weekend we celebrate Trinity Sunday which is all about the triune god Father, son and Holy Spirit. The Father is equal to the Son and the Son is equal to the Spirit three in one and one in three we hear this in the breastplate of St. Patrick. The 4th century St Patrick, with a brilliance that we Irish are justly celebrate found in the three leaf shamrock rising from the one stem an image of the Trinity. The feast of the Trinity goes back to 12th century England and St Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Historians say the great Thomas celebrated a Liturgy in honor of the Trinity in his cathedral. So was born the observance. In the 14th century, the feast came to be observed by the universal Church.  We open each Liturgy especially the Mass invoking the Trinity . We close Mass and so many other liturgies by calling upon the same Persons Father Son and Spirit in blessing us as we go out into the world. Throughout the Christian world infants will be received into our faith communities  through Baptism in the name of the Trinity

Trinity Sunday is the day when we stand back from the extraordinary sequence of events that we’ve been celebrating for the previous five months—Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Ascension and  Pentecost  it is the day when we  are asked to rub the sleep from our eyes and discover what the word ‘god’ might actually mean. How do we understand the Trinity? The Christian belief that God is a trinity helps underscore how rich the mystery of God is and how our experience of God is always richer than our concepts and language about God.  The doctrine of the Trinity affirms God as loving and knowing, giving and receiving. We profess that God could not be God without the “other” (the Son) and the eternal bond of their relationship (the Spirit). While some may think that the doctrine of the Trinity is negotiable, it is actually central to our faith. If we lose it, we lose all we are. Moses’ personal God, “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, rich in kindness and fidelity,” emerges in St. Paul as the interpersonal Trinity that models true human relationship. Thus Paul prays: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Spirit be with you all.” When the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, it is an attempt to summarize the whole mystery of our God into one day. This is not just a “theological feast” ` but a feast which should speak to us of this simple fact of faith: the Father loves us, has revealed that love in his Son, and has called into a relationship sustained by the Spirit. It is our joy that, as baptized members of the Church, we can somehow share in that divine life and love which is the Trinity – becoming children of God. God has chosen us, and we are his own people, just as he chose the people of Israel long ago. Each Trinity Sunday, we only scratch the surface of this great mystery of our faith. In gratitude and faith, let us begin and end every prayer with greater faith and reverence “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”